Dave Free Shares His Thoughts On Black Hippy And Their Strategy [SM Exclusive]

Jul 23 2011

Victor Sandoval

Top Dawg Entertainment’s social media director, Dave Free, took some time to speak with us regarding the inner workings of Black Hippy.

Having had a hand in the group’s main direction, he shared his thoughts on what he really thinks of Black Hippy, and what their current strategy is heading into a long awaited debut album. With such a respect for unity and focus, it’s easy to see why Black Hippy and TDE have been so great together.

Speaking on what makes Black Hippy stand out from standard hip hop groups, Dave Free explained the meaning of the group’s teamwork mentality:

“They’ve been together for about, five years now. With us, it’s like a brotherhood kind of thing. It’s different from most artists that are just in a group together, and have different goals. We all have the same goal, if that makes more sense. It makes it easier because it gives everybody time to focus their energy on that one person. Everybody gets their turn, everybody gets their goal. To me that’s the way to do the group because you don’t ever have to worry about bullshit down the line. Everybody gets their shot, everybody gets their goal. Everybody gets their own fan base, and then you bring that together, and you create this diamond because of this pressure. All these guys pushing this pressure together to create this one diamond.”

Taking a moment to reflect, Dave Free did his best to describe each member in a few words:

“That’s hard. Jay Rock is like the enforcer and the street poet. Schoolboy Q is like the soulful street poet. Kendrick’s like the beast, I don’t know, he’s like the aggressive nice guy. Ab-Soul is like the mascot, he’s wild and crazy, he should be wearing the mascot outfit.”

Of course, the overwhelming popularity of Black Hippy continues to raise questions about their debut release. As Dave Free explains, there are other obligations to carry out first:

“We’re keeping Black Hippy selective right now. We’re being very selective with them, we’re not doing many features with them with other artists. We’re just keeping them to the point where we get every artist on the team to where he needs to be, and then it will be a bigger thing.”

For now, fans can hear brand new material from Black Hippy on Jay Rock’s Follow Me Home, and be sure to check out the official music video for “Say Wassup” below.